ShareIn the spring of 2000, practitioners came from across the world to Thich Nhat Hanh’s “Eye of the Buddha” retreat at Plum Village. If you have not had the pleasure of being on retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh (or if you have), here is an opportunity to read in succession each Dharma talk he gave at the 21-day retreat. We will be posting them week by week. Enjoy your reading the seventh talk...
* we would like to apologize for not being able to offer the 6th talk which is the Q&A as we do not have a completed version of it...


The Eye of the Buddha Retreat
A 21-day retreat in Plum Village
June 2nd - 22, 2000

Transcriber: Tenzin Namdrol
Edited by: David Haskin

Teachings by Thich Nhat Hanh
Tape 7, June 8, 2000

Side A

Bell

The nectar of compassion glistens on the willow branch.
A single drop is enough to bring life to ten directions of the cosmos.
May all afflictions of the world disappear totally
And may this practice center be completely purified
By the Bodhisattva's nectar of compassion.
Homage to the Bodhisattva who refreshes the earth.

From the depths of understanding a flower of great eloquence blooms
The Bodhisattva stands majestically.
Upon the waves of birth and death free from all afflictions.
Her compassion eliminates all sickness, even that once thought of as incurable.
Her wondrous light sweeps away all obstacles and dangers.
Her willow branch once waved reveals countless Buddha lands.

Her lotus flower when it blooms a multitude of practice centers.
We bow to her to see her true presence in the here and now
We offer her the incense of our hearts.
May the Bodhisattva of deep listening embrace us with great compassion.
Namo  Avalokiteshvara

Bell

Dear Sangha, today is June 8, 2000 and we are in the New Hamlet.  Today is the first day of the second week in our twenty-one-day retreat.

I think the expression "super organism" was given by a person whose name is Willard describing the community of those social insects as "one organism where harmony exists." When we recite the Three Refuges we also say, "I take refuge in the Sangha, the community that lives in harmony and awareness," so that harmony should be the characteristic of a real Sangha, but in the bee hive there is also harmony.  The difference between a Sangha and a bee hive is that we have awareness.  If we call the Sangha, "harmony organism," it will not differ very much from the organization of the bees and maybe we can call it "awareness organism," or "awareness organism, mindful organism,"  because it is the practice of mindfulness that makes a Sangha into a real Sangha. If we have harmony and happiness and solidity, that is because we know how to practice mindfulness.  Mindfulness is the heart of the Buddhist practice because mindfulness brings concentration and insight and that insight has the power to liberate us, transform us and to make us live in harmony and happiness.

We can also use the word "conscious organism," We should find out the appropriate word in order to express the idea, the notion that the Sangha is a community that practices mindfulness in order to be together in harmony, in solidity, in happiness and offering itself as a refuge to living beings.  Three million and one half years ago humans were able to stand up and not to walk on the two hands any more and the race of homo erectus began to manifest. Since that day our brain has been able to grow very quickly because our hands are liberated from the task of walking.  That is why we became very free and we begin to use our hands in order to manipulate many instruments. The way we make use of our hands can have a very deep effect on our brain.  Since that time our brain has grown three times bigger than before.  We have learned to think, to express ourselves in languages and grammar, syntax and metaphors; all of that was been born when we were able to stand up and get our hands free.

So the environment can have a very important impact on our biological nature.  Homo erectus, homo sapiens.  The Buddha belonged to that species of humans that can be called homo "conscious" (laughter) --  the mindful person, the mindful human being.  Homo conscious is the human who is aware of what is going on in his mind, in his actions and in his speech.  He becomes aware of what is going on in these three domains and he will be able to avoid a lot of mistakes.  If I am saying something mean to you and I am aware that I am doing that, I can stop saying things that can make you suffer and me suffer also.  That is the power of mindfulness.  If I am acting cruelly destroying my fellow human beings and if I am aware of that, I have a chance to stop.   If I am thinking wrongly and if I know that I am thinking wrongly, in the wrong direction, I would be able to stop that way of thinking.  That is the power of mindfulness.  When you practice mindfulness you belong to that race of humans that take mindfulness as our art of daily living.  When we live as a Sangha, the Sangha becomes a kind of organism, our own body with which we move, we think and we act.   When we come together as a Sangha we are no longer individuals and something happens.  We become stronger and we know better what to do and what not to do.  You know the most important thing to do, the best way to be.

There is a scientist whose name is Grasse who studied the life of the termites and he invented the word stigmergy.  A very interesting term.  In order to describe the way a social insect behaves, stig here means the act of insect biting or incitation and mergy means work, in French oeuvre.    Your motivation to be there and the inspiration that you get in order to work, to be active, is the work itself.  Suddenly you know what you want to do and you do it together.   According to many, when the social insects come together and reach the community size, Sangha size, they begin to be transformed, they become an organism and they communicate.  They release pheromones and suddenly become active and that is one of the aspects of their life.  Coming together and enriching the community size, there is a transformation, there is an big inspiration, there is life as an organism.   The second thing is that when they look into the situation, they see that there are things that have been done, like when they build a column, it is by looking at the work half done that they get the inspiration to act, to live.  That is why they said that it is the work that inspires the individuals in the community to get going and to do things together.  It looks like there is awareness that there is something that you can do for your own well being and the well being of the whole community.  That is the second thing that happens when members of the Sangha come together and reach the Sangha size. Before that we did not know what to do, we were not inspired. But when we come together as a Sangha suddenly we realize there are things to do and we enjoy doing that together.  So the incitation is to do things to realize, to build, just because you realize that the work is there to be done.   

I learned that pigeons do not lay eggs if they don't see other pigeons around.  If a pigeon is left alone she will not lay eggs, only if she sees other pigeons flying around that a pigeon begins to lay eggs.  The termites act very much the same way.  If they are to rebuild the chamber of the termite queen, they should see the termite queen there in order to begin things.  When they see the queen, they suddenly become aware that there is something to do and they begin to build the chamber for the queen right away; otherwise they go around and they don't do anything.  So it is the work that inspires the action and the life together as a Sangha.  It is very much the same thing when the Sangha is convened.  When the Sangha is convened the Sangha reaches the size that can give the inspiration, the energy and as the Sangha comes together there is awareness of suffering, of something to be done in order to transform and to heal.  The awareness of the first noble truth, dukkha, ill being, becomes real and, inspired by the desire to do something in order to reduce the amount of suffering that is there, will inspire us to live in such a way, and to practice in such a way, and to be active in such a way that suffering could be understood, suffering could be identified, suffering could be relieved and well-being becomes a reality.

It is our task as a Sangha to recognize that suffering is there.  It is our task as a Sangha to look deeply into the nature of our suffering in order to see the way out of suffering, the way of cessation. As a separate individuals we do not have enough inspiration, energy in order to do that but when we come together as a Sangha there is the vitality, the strength, the awareness that help us to do that.  That is why the coming together of individuals to become a Sangha it is very important event in our life.

The other day we spoke about the Sangha eyes and we may have the tendency to think of the Sangha eyes as the eyes of the community and that the community has to come together as a group and begin to look. At that moment we have the Sangha eyes.  We think that the Sangha is not our individual eyes but we do have our Sangha eyes, every one of us.  The Sangha eyes are your eyes but you use your eyes in such a way that you can see what the Sangha can see.  You don't need everyone in the Sangha to be there in order to have the Sangha eyes because as a member of a community of practice you learn to walk with the Sangha feet, you learn how to act with Sangha arm and you learn to look with the Sangha eyes.  So learning to look with the Sangha eyes is the Sangha practice.

You look, not as an individual but you look as a community, the Sangha, and suddenly your Sangha eyes reveal themselves to you.  You do have the Sangha eyes, you have to make use of the Sangha eyes.  You do have the Buddha eyes, you have to make use of your Buddha eyes.  You have your Dharma eyes, you have to make use of your Dharma eyes.  If you find yourself physically alone in the marketplace or in another city but if you still practice taking refuge in the Sangha, it is the Sangha who is there in the marketplace in the far-away city.  You can still walk with the feet of the Sangha, you can still look with the Sangha eyes and listen with the Sangha ears.  Therefore you have to remember the Buddha eyes  are not the eyes of someone called the Buddha alone.  The Sangha eyes are the eyes that we possess and our practice is to cleanse them, to help them manifest so that we can make use of our Buddha eyes.  The eye of the Buddha  means our Buddha eyes.

The teaching of Mahayana Buddhism is that you are a Buddha.  You are a potential Buddha. You have the nature of awakening, you have the capacity of complete enlightenment, you have the capacity of great love and great freedom.  Your practice is to allow that great love, that great freedom to manifest.  Your practice is to allow the Buddha eyes in you to reveal fully so that you can look as a Buddha.  The Buddha has six kinds of eyes:  fleshly eyes, heavenly eyes, Dharma eyes, wisdom eyes, Sangha eyes, Buddha eyes.  Each of us also has six kinds of eyes.  We have our fleshly eyes, we have our heavenly eyes, we have our Dharma eyes, we have our wisdom eyes, we have our Sangha eyes and we do have our Buddha eyes.    Therefore our practice is to allow these six eyes to manifest fully, to be cleansed thoroughly so that we can observe the world, we can see the world.

Bell

You may like to inquire about characteristics of our Buddha eyes.  The Buddha eyes are the kind of eyes that can help us to see things in their true nature, in their suchness.  Suchness is a Buddhist technical term that means reality as it is.   Suchness [真如], chân như.  Reality is reality; it cannot be expressed in notions, in concepts.  The only thing that you can say about reality is that reality is reality and attempts to describe reality always fail.  The only one way to understand reality is to have direct access and that direct access to reality is possible only when you have freedom, and especially freedom from notions, ideas, prejudices and so on.  Suppose we talk about durian as a fruit.  Many of you do not know that fruit.   There are so many people who are crazy about durian.  They love it so much.  They are so expensive and there are many people who love that kind of fruit so much that after having eaten it they keep the skin and they put it under their bed in order to continue to smell that (laughter).  But for many of us it is a horrible kind of smell.  In the countries of Southeast Asia, especially in Cambodia, they grow that kind of fruit a lot, durian.  I remember when I was a young monk and I was reciting the Lotus Sutra, I could not concentrate at all on the sutra because on the altar someone had offered to the Buddha durian (laughter).  Before that I had been offered a piece of durian and I thought it was jack fruit so I put it in my mouth but after I had done that I was caught because it was at a formal meal (laughter).  I could not swallow and I could not spit it out!  (laughter)  I suffered so much, so I got a strong internal formation concerning durian.  

So one day I was reciting one chapter of the Lotus Sutra and suddenly I hear, I smell and I look up and I saw! -- the durian.  I could not concentrate but I got to finish the recitation so I looked around and I didn't see any escape. So finally I stood up, I used the bowl bell, I imprisoned the fruit (laughter)  and I recited the sutra without using the bell, only the drum (laughter).  After I finished the recitation, I liberated the durian (laughter).

I like to tell the story about the durian in order to make people understand that when you love someone you should understand him or her and not offer him/her things that she could not enjoy.  If someone said, "Thay you work so hard…you need something good to eat, you have to eat this durian," I would suffer a lot."  So be aware that your beloved one, you have to understand him deeply, what he/she likes, what he/she dislikes and do not offer the things that would make her suffer.  Understanding is the base of love.  If you lack understanding and then, out of good will, you may want to make him/her happy but in fact you are making him/her suffer a lot.

Some of us here have had direct experiences about durian like myself.  Now suppose someone would come and ask you, "tell me about durian, what does it taste like?"  And it would be very difficult even if I have had direct and real contact with durians. I could not tell you how it tastes.  The language that I possess is useless.  I cannot use language in order to give you a notion about durian.  Durian is reality and reality cannot be expressed by words and concepts.  Durian or bananas. If someone has not tasted bananas, if someone has not tasted guava or mango and you try your best, even if you try your best, you cannot convey to him/her the reality of the taste of a mango.  That is the situation.  Reality is like that. Reality cannot be described by words and notions and concepts.  The only way to help the other person to know what is the real taste of the mango is to put a piece of mango into his mouth.  Direct experience only can help you to understand reality as it is and not reality as a notion, as a concept.  

The Buddha eyes are the kind of eyes that give access to reality in itself and you should be free from all preconceived ideas and notions in order to have that direct access.  Therefore, the Buddha eyes are characterized by freedom.  Freedom from views, freedom from concepts, doctrines, ideologies. Theories are considered to be views and in Buddhism, the word dsrti means views and according to the Buddha eyes all views are wrong views.

In Sanskrit is drsti and in Pali is ditthi, it means views, but words like that, standing like that alone, it means wrong views.  All views are wrong views.  The right view is the absence of views because you don't have views; you just have the reality. You don't have any views any more and that is the Buddhist teaching about ultimate reality.  You can say something about God, you can have several ideas about God, you can offer the logics and the speech about God, theology, but nothing, no idea, no concepts, no words can describe that reality called God.  You cannot say anything about God. God has to be experimented directly. In Buddhism, Suchness is a word that we use in order to denote, to call that ultimate reality that cannot be described with words, and notions, and concepts.  Suchness means…. well… banana is banana, durian is durian, you cannot say anything about it.  It is what it is. And the Buddha eyes are the kind of eyes that can help us to get direct access to the ultimate reality; you can do that only when you are liberated from all views.

There is a sutra that you have in front of you with the text, Discourse on the Absolute Truth.  Let us read together to get a kind of taste.  

He who still abides by a dogmatic view, considering it as the highest in the world, thinking “this is the most excellent” and disparaging other views as inferior, is still considered not to be fee from disputes.

When seeing, hearing, or sensing something and considering it as the only thing that can bring comfort and advantage to self, one is always inclined to get caught in it and rule out everything else as inferior.

Caught in one’s view and considering all other views as inferior — this attitude is considered by the wise as bondage, as the absence of freedom. A good practitioner is never too quick to believe what is seen, heard, and sensed, including rules and rites.

A good practitioner has no need to set up a new theory for the world, using the knowledge he has picked up or the rules and rites he is practicing. He does not consider himself as “superior,” “inferior,” or “equal” to anyone.

A good practitioner abandons the notion of self and the tendency to cling to views. He is free and does not depend on anything, even on knowledge. He does not take sides in controversies and does not hold on to any view or dogma.

He does not seek for anything or cling to anything, either this extreme or the other extreme, either in this world or in the other world. He has abandoned all views and no longer has the need to seek for comfort or refuge in any theory or ideology.

To the wise person, there are no longer any views concerning what is seen, heard, or sensed. How could one judge or have an opinion concerning such a pure being who has let go of all views?

A wise person no longer feels the need to set up dogmas or choosing an ideology. All dogmas and ideologies have been abandoned by such a person. A real noble one is never caught in rules or rites. He or she is advancing steadfastly to the shore of liberation and will never return to the realm of bondage.

Paramatthaka Sutta
Sutta Nipata 4.5

Bell

This sutra is translated from the Pali cannon and belongs to a collection of sutras called the Sutta Nipata and the title of the sutra is the Paramathaka Sutta. Paramatha means absolute truth, the higher truth.  In Buddhism we distinguish two kinds of truths, the absolute truth and the relative truth.  The relative truth is called samvrtisatya [俗諦], tục đế.  The absolute truth is called paramathasatya [真諦], chân đế.   When you study Buddhist literature, the sutras, you have to bear in mind that sometimes the relative truth is being offered to you or the absolute truth is being offered to you; you have to distinguish that.  Sometimes what the Buddha said seems to contradict each other.  Sometimes he said that, "you are of the nature to die, you cannot escape death."  Sometimes he also says, "ultimate reality is not affected by birth and death, there is no birth and there is no death."  

Sometime he said that you have to use your “dharma eyes” and sometime he said that "there are no eyes." Like in the Heart Sutra, "no eyes, no ear, no nose."  So things he said seemed to be contradicting each other, and if you see that contradiction, if you don't mind it is because you already know about the two kinds of truths.

It is like to say that while we sit here we realize that this is the direction of our above and this is direction of our below.  We are very sure that this is above and this is below.  But just visualize our friends in China who are sitting on the other side of the planet.  They would not agree that this is their "above."  They believe this is their "below."  So, when we speak of above and below we speak in terms of relative truths because the idea of below and above cannot be applied to the cosmos.   Suppose this is the globe, the Earth and this is Paris, and this is New York, and you are taking the plane here and you think you are going this way. But if you go this way you never get to New York, (laughter); you have to go this way.  And if you go this way it is the way to go back to Paris also because if you continue, you go back to Paris.  You think you are leaving Paris for good but you are going back to it all the time.

There are different ways of seeing the same thing and you should know that it is the relative truth that you are speaking about or the absolute truth and it is very important for understanding the Buddha's teaching.  And this sutra is about the absolute truth, paramatha and we learn right away that the absolute truth is the truth that cannot be contained in, that can be grasped by ideas, notions and words.

This sutra is very old, very archaic. It belongs to the series of sutras which are the most ancient.  In this collection of sutras called Sutta Nipata there are two chapters that have been considered by many, many scholars as the most ancient scriptures of Buddhism.   These two chapters are Mahavarga and Atthavarga. Our sutra belongs to the chapter Atthakavagga in Pali,

When you study the Pali text you realize that the wording, the syntax, the grammar are characteristic of the Vedic and Brahmanistic literature that could not be seen in later Buddhist literature, in other sutras, and that is why philologists all agree with each other that this is the most archaic kind of scriptures that are available to us.  It reflects the teaching of the Buddha in its first stage when the Sangha was not organized to live in monasteries.  Bikshus used to wander around, there were no monasteries, and the sutra reveals that there were lots of philosophical speculation at this time.

I have been able to find the equivalent in the Chinese cannon in this sutra. It was translated in the beginning of the third century by a layperson whose name is Tche khim.  The collection of sutras he translated here bear the name of  nghĩa túc kinh [義 足 經], nghĩa means the meaning and túc means sufficient, everything is there and not lacking anything.  kinh means sutra.  If you know something about the history of Vietnamese Buddhism you know that during the first half of the third century there was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk whose name was Tang Hoi who went to teach Buddhism in China.  At that time China was divided into three countries after the dissolution of the Han regime and that period of time is called the period of the three kingdoms Tam Quốc [三國]. The Northern state is called Tào Ngụy [曹魏], the kingdom on the West side is Thục Hán 蜀漢  and the country below the Yangtse River is called Đông Ngô [東吳]. When master Tang Hoi arrived in the capital of  Đông Ngô , it is said that there were no Buddhism, no Buddhist monks in the kingdom of Đông Ngô. The monk Tang Hoi  was the first Buddhist monk was the first monk to appear in the kingdom of Đông Ngô.

Tang Hoi's father had come to Vietnam by boat as a merchant, as a young man.  He found the country appealing to him and so he stayed there.  He married a Vietnamese woman and she gave birth to that boy who became later a very famous monk.  Tang Hoi became a novice monk at the end of 11 or 12, a baby monk.  In the temple he studied Sanskrit and Chinese and he had translated many sutras from Sanskrit to Chinese and he wrote the foreword for the sutra on the practice of mindful breathing in and out.  That is still available in the Chinese canon.  After having studied, practiced and taught in Vietnam, he left the country to go and to bring the Dharma to China and in the records of the lives of eminent monks in China it is said that when Tang Hoi came there were no Chinese monks at all. He was the first Buddhist monk to be seen by the Chinese people and he was able to help and to convince the king of Đông Ngô to receive the Five Mindfulness Trainings and the king built for him a practice center, the first Buddhist practice center in the kingdom, called the first built Buddhist temple in the country.  Later on he sent forth other monks from Vietnam and organized ordination ceremonies for Chinese Buddhist monks.   But when he arrived although there were no Chinese or foreign monks there. There was a scholar who came from India whose name is Tche Kiem.

This monk is a great scholar.  He knew so many languages and he had brought with him a number of manuscripts.  He came from a country called Indo Scythia.   At about the end f the 1st century AD the kingdom of Scythia included also Kashmir very big, and king Kaniska, ruling over the kingdom was a great protector of Buddhism, so Tche Kiem came from that kingdom with a lot of scriptures with him.  A real Buddhist, a lay person, upasaka and he arrived in China during the Han dynasty. But there was war, the country was divided and he had to go South and because he was so good in languages and in philosophy he was asked to be the preceptor, the teacher of the prince. The prince had two teachers and Tche Kiem was one of them.  And it was Tche Kiem who translated this collection of sutras Atthavarga into Chinese and therefore the Chinese version is available also in very archaic Chinese, very difficult to read.

It also has eight paragraphs in the Pali canon, but it has something else. It has a long introduction in prose and this introduction reveals to us the situation of India at the time of the Buddha when he first attained enlightenment and he began to receive young men into his Sangha as bhiksus. And the sutra that is equivalent to the paramatrasutra in the collection of nghĩa túc kinh [義 足 經] is called chánh dung vương kinh [鏡面王經],  This means the mirror.  The king who has a face like a mirror.  In this introduction it is said that one day many bikshus in the early morning set out to the village but it was a little bit early to do the alms round and that is why they stopped in a community of another spiritual sect and they witnessed a discussion among many sections of the people who had gathered there.  There were lots of disputes, quarrels and everyone claimed that he had the ultimate truth and other people were wrong.  "Only my teaching is authentic, your teaching is not authentic, this is the best kind of doctrine and so on…" There was a lot of dispute, a lot of theological and philosophical speculations and there was no peace at all. Everyone claimed to be the best and the bikshus were very confused about that, very sad about that  and so they went to the Buddha and reported what they had seen and the Buddha told them a Jataka story, a story of his former life.  He said, "Dear friends, in one of my former lives I was a king. My name was, 'king with the face that looks like a mirror.'  One day I ordered to invite all the blind people in the city to come for a visit and I ordered an elephant to be brought out and I invited all the blind people to touch the elephant and tell me what an elephant would look like. After having done that one person said, 'the elephant is like a column!' because he had touched a foot of the elephant.  Another said, 'you are wrong. The elephant does not look like a column, it looks like a fan!' because he had just touched the ear of the elephant. Another said,  'no, the elephant doesn't look like a fan, it looks like a Buddha,' because he had touched the back of the elephant.  And another one said,  'no, an elephant does not look like a Buddha, it looks like a broom,' because that person had touched the tail of the elephant.  And the king laughed and laughed and he said you know what?  'All that you said was wrong because you have only seen part of the reality and you claim to have the true image of the reality.'"

Dear friends, you know, it is like that.  If many people have not had access to reality and claim to have reality and disparage others as inferior to them because they don't get their truth. After that the Buddha gave the eight paragraphs that are available to us in both Pali and Chinese.  With that background we can understand the teaching of the sutra, and those of us who practice the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings, we feel very close to this sutra.  The first Mindfulness Training, the second and the third of the fourteen Mindfulness Trainings are faithful expressions of the spirit of the sutra.  We should not be bound to any view, to any doctrine. You should be free and the teaching of the Buddha cannot be conceived as views or ideologies, or doctrines or theologies. They should be regarded as instruments for your practice.  We don't worship them as the ultimate truth.

Bell

The Buddha said in this sutra that when you hear something, even a Dharma talk, when you see something, even a practice, you should not be caught by what you hear and what you see because what you hear and what you see might become an obstacle for your growth.  For your spiritual growth.  You have to retain your freedom because what you see and what you hear may give you a view and the fact is that all views are wrong views.  Views prevent us from having direct access to reality.  So, be very careful in using your eyes, be very careful in using your ears, your nose, your tongue, your body and your consciousness.  Do not get caught in views. That is the core of the teaching, and that is the teaching called "non-attachment to views."

If you have learned and practiced the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings you know that the first three trainings are to help us not to be attached to views, doctrines, ideologies and that the Buddha eyes can be described first of all as the kind of eyes that can help us to retain our freedom.  Freedom, not political freedom, but freedom from views, freedom from theories, from doctrines.  Therefore the Buddha barred the road of philosophical speculations.  This is very authentic as far as Buddhist teaching is concerned.  You should not spend your time speculating about doctrines, ideologies.  What you should do is to learn the way of practice so you can identify your suffering, so you can recognize your suffering, you can look deeply into the nature of your suffering and you see the path leading to the cessation of suffering and you should not endow yourself into looking for an ideology, a doctrine, a theory, you should not endow yourself into metaphysical speculations. This is very basic in the Buddhist teaching.

The Buddha said, "I only teach two things: I teach about suffering and the way out of suffering."   Your time should be devoted to the study and the practice of these two things.  And when we are able to liberate ourselves from suffering our mind becomes clear, then our mind can reflect ultimate reality without any intellectual searching.  Your mind will become like a mirror that can reflect reality as it is, without any distortion.  You are a king and your face is like a mirror reflecting reality as it is and you do not need any words, any concepts, any notions.  He who still abides by dogmatic views considering it as the highest in the world, thinking this is the most excellent and disparaging other views as inferior is still considered not to be free from dispute.  It means, my dear friends, my dear disciples, don't get into it.  Make good use of your time for the practice of transformation and healing.

When seeing, hearing or sensing something and considering it as the only thing that can bring comfort and advantage to oneself, one is always inclined to get caught in it and draw out everything else as inferior, that is the natural tendency of every one of us.  We want to detain the truth.  It is a wonderful feeling that we have got the truth and others have not, (laughter) and we lose our freedom.  Caught in one's view and considering all other views as inferior, this attitude is considered to be, by the wise, as bondage, as the absence of freedom and when you do not have freedom your spiritual path is blocked.   You cannot make any further progress.

Just last week someone wrote to Thay and said, "Thay, I noticed that the spiritual path only satisfies us for two or three years and it seems that after that we cannot make any progress.  You are very enthusiastic during the first few years learning and practicing the spiritual practice but after a few years you feel that you cannot advance any more. I understood right away.  That is because what you are being offered is a set of teachings, a set of views, and the kind of practice that is based on these views, and that is why you get caught and you can no longer make any progress.  The only way to continue progressing on your spiritual path is to remove the obstacles made of views, even doctrinal views, views about freedom and transformation.  We have to rid ourselves of any views.

In the sutra called the Sutra of One Hundred Parables, the Buddha tells the story of a young businessman who lost his son, his little boy.  He was absent, he was so busy, he was not home to take care of his little boy and during his absence many pirates came and burned down the village and kidnapped the kid.  And when our businessman came home he saw his house burned, just a heap of ash.  He panicked.  He was looking for his little boy but he could not see him anywhere and in that state of panic he saw the charred body of a child and he believed that to be the dead body of his little boy. He threw himself to the ground, he beat his chest, he pulled his hair, he cried, because he was absent and that is why his little boy is dead.  After that he organized a cremation ceremony and he collected the ash from the body of the child and he put it into a beautiful velvet bag and he carried it with him all the time.  Eating, sleeping, walking, he always carried the bag of ash of his so-called little boy because his wife was no longer there, the little boy was the only reason for his life and so he was inhabited by a feeling of grief and sorrow and he was so attached to the little bag containing the ashes of his little boy.  

One night when he was lying, without being able to sleep and crying silently, he heard the knocking on the door.  It was his son who was able to escape from the pirates and came home to find out that his father had built a new house.  So he knocked at the door at about 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning and the father said, "who is there?"  "It is me, your son! please open!"  The father said, "No, you naughty boy, my son is already dead.  Who are you to come at this hour of the night and disturb me!  Go away or I will give you a piece of my mind."  The little boy insisted several times but the father was so sure his little boy was dead.  Finally the little boy had to go away and father and son separated forever.  That is a story told by the Buddha, and the Buddha said:  "Sometime in your life you take something to be the truth and you are caught by it, and you are stuck.  You have no other chance in order to advance in your spiritual path and to go searching for the truth and even if the truth comes and knocks at your door you refuse to open it."  It is a wonderful story about attachment.

When you continue to suffer, the practice of the Buddha is to release views in order to advance in your spiritual path.  Suppose you have climbed a ladder and you arrived on the fifth step and looking down you see that you are very high and you think you have acquired the highest kind of view, the most beautiful view. You can get and if you are caught in this situation you do not like to make another step, because it is always possible to take another step. It is like science.   Scientists have discovered things and consider them to be the truth and if they are attached to that, if they think of that as the absolute truth they will stop to inquire and they cannot advance.  A good scientist is a scientist who is ready to abandon the views because they are open minded, they are free and the spirit of science is a spirit of openness.  A good scientist is always ready to let go of his or her findings in order to make another step on the path of free inquiry.  So the practice of non-attachment to views is very basic in the teachings of the Buddha.   Each one of us has to use our Buddha eyes in order to practice it, to free ourselves from views. Happy is the person who is free from views, including the views on happiness (laughter).

There is a country that believes that ideology alone can help the country to be strong and people to be happy and they embrace that ideology for 70 years. During that time there is persecution of a lot of people who do not agree with them.  They put them in prisons, in psychiatric hospitals because they had the courage to challenge them about their views.  They created a lot of suffering, of death, of separation, of frustration because you are too much attached to a view, a super ideology.  You can hold on to a view like that for as long as 70 years, but 70 years is a lot; it can create a lot of suffering to you and to the people you love.  Your good will is there but you do not have freedom.  Each of us may be still imprisoned by our view considering our happiness.  We believe we can only be happy with these conditions:  a, b, c, d.  So, according to this teaching, it is very helpful to go back and to take a look at our view concerning our own happiness.  Maybe it is likely that your view of happiness is the main obstacle for you to be happy. (laughter)  

If you have one hour, two hours, to practice, please go and sit at the foot of the plum tree and look at your idea concerning your happiness.  You have believed firmly that if you don't get this or that happiness will not be possible. It may be that if you abandon that view of happiness then happiness can come to you right here and right now because conditions for happiness are always there; it is only because you imprison yourself that happiness has never been possible to you.  According to the Buddha, to live happily in the here and the now is possible for anyone.  You need only one thing to be free, to be free from your views. It is not that other people are imposing something on you so that you cannot be free, it is you who imprison yourself in your views that is why the basic practice of Buddhism is a practice of removing of the views.   Nirvana is the absence, is the silencing of all views because views and notions are the foundation of suffering.  

When you are able to silence all views and words, when you get free from views and words, reality reveals itself to you and that is Nirvana, Nirvana is cessation, is the extinction.  First the extinction of views and then the extinction of the suffering that is born from these views.  We are very aware, we are very concerned about our well being and the well being of our beloved ones.  We want us to be happy, we want our children, our partner, our friends to be happy; we don't have any doubt about that kind of good will.  But we are not free, we think that our son can only be happy if he does this, if he does not do that… our daughter can be happy only if she does this and she did not do that… so we impose our views on our beloved ones and destroy them because of our good will.  To love is to offer freedom, to offer the conditions for the other person to be free and to get the right understanding about his or her happiness.  

Bell

One day the Buddha was sitting in the woods near the city of Sravasti. He had finished his lunch and surrounding him there were a group of monks and suddenly a farmer went by.  The farmer looked very unhappy and asked:  "Monks, have you seen my cows? They went by this way…"  And the Buddha said, "No we have not seen any cows. You have to go and look for them in the other direction."  The farmer said, "Monks, I suffer so much, I think I am going to kill myself.  I only have twelve cows and I don't know why this morning they have left me and run way.  I have two acres of sesame seeds planted and this year the insects ate them all.  I suffer so much!  I think I am going to kill myself."  Out of compassion the Buddha said, "My dear friend, we have not seen your cows passing by this way, so please try and look in the other direction."  After the farmer was gone the Buddha turned back to his monks and smiled and said, "You, my friends, are the luckiest people on earth.  You don't have any cows to lose (laughter)."  Our cows may be our business, our enterprise, our cows may be the other person, our hopes, our desires.  Our cows may be our ideas, our notions as how to be happy.  The happiest person is the person who is free from cows.  It is the person who is capable of releasing cows.

So, I would like to suggest that each of us has some time to practice looking deeply into our view, our notion of our own happiness, our own practice.  If we are not happy yet, if we are still struggling for happiness, if we are not capable of establishing ourselves in the here and the now and enjoy every minute of our daily life, it may be because we still entertain a view concerning our own happiness.  

Our purpose of coming to the retreat is not to acquire more views (laughter) nor ideas concerning the Dharma.  Maybe you think that you need to bring something home after the retreat, but the best way is not to bring anything home, the best way is to leave everything here (laughter) and to come home as a free person so that the teaching and the practice aims at only help you to release all your cows inside of you and you come home as a free person, whether you are a therapist, a scientist, a householder, a parent, a teacher. It is very important for you to release all your cows and become a free person.  When you go home with that freedom you will be the best therapist, you'll be the best educator.  It is not our practice to gather more ideas and notions even ideas and notions concerning Buddhism, to learn a number of things in order to go home and apply them to our profession and so on.   It is said here very clearly that concerning three things: You have to be careful first of all, doctrines.  

Second, the rules, even if the rules are presented in the form of mindfulness trainings, rite, rituals, we have to be free from all three.  Let us listen to the third paragraph.  "Caught in one's view and considering all other views as inferior, this attitude is considered by the wise as bondage as the absence of freedom.  A good practitioner never hastily believes in what is seen, heard and sensed, including rules and rites."  It is very clear. You have seen something, you hear something, you get caught, and that something is what?  That something is the teaching, the doctrine, that something is the rule and that something is the ritual, and the basic teaching of the Buddha is not to get caught in the teachings, even the teachings on impermanence, the teaching of no-self, the teaching of nirvana, not to get caught in rules, even the Mindfulness Trainings, not to get caught in rituals, like chanting, bowing.  You can bow, as a free person, or you can bow as a slave because you get caught in the rituals and the Buddha advises us not to get caught in rituals, not to get caught in rules because the Mindfulness Trainings are not there to deprive you of your freedom.  

If you receive the Mindfulness Trainings having the impression that you have lost your freedom, the Mindfulness Trainings become an obstacle for your evolution, for your happiness. If you receive teachings and think that these teachings are what you have to die for, to fight for survival, sacrificing myself and the lives of other people, you get caught in the teaching and you lose your freedom.  So, freedom is the foundation of the Buddhist teaching and practice.  

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